WHAT BLACK BEAR BELIEVES
Why?
Black Bear believes in innovation for a cleaner world. We view the global environment crisis as an opportunity to make meaningful change.
How?
Using a Circular Economy model, we transform used-tires into high quality, safe, simple to use & sustainable products.
What?
We just happen to produce the world’s highest quality ‘upcycled’ Carbon Black.
OUR TEAM
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OUR TECHNOLOGY
Steel Removal
Step 1 - Pre-production.
Before reaching the Black Bear facility the steel is removed from the tires. It will also be recycled, thereby contributing to the circular economy solution.
Carbonisation
Step 2. Carbonisation
Tire rubber is heated in the absence of oxygen under controlled conditions of temperature and time. The rubber is broken down into much smaller molecules which are released as a gas, leaving behind a solid carbonaceous char. This char is valuable because it contains all of the high value “furnace” carbon blacks that were used to manufacture new tires.
De-agglomeration
Step 3. De-agglomeration
‘De-agglomeration’ is the process of breaking down the carbonaceous char material into smaller particles (or aggregates). The process controls the ‘particle size distribution’ (PSD) of the final product. PSD is a key product performance property as it relates to carbon black’s reinforcing effect in rubber compounds.
Pelletising
Step 4. Pelletising
Pelletising solves the handling and storage problems associated with fluffy carbon black powder by effectively increasing its bulk density by three to four times. During this step the fluffy carbon black is combined with controlled amounts of water and binding agents in a pelletiser mixer. Large volumes of air are removed from the carbon black powder and pellets.
Drying
Step 5. Drying
Water that was used in the pelletising step is now evaporated under controlled conditions. A very small amount of binding agent remains behind and ensures that the dried pellets hold together with sufficient strength to withstand packaging and transportation handling. The pellets are also soft enough to be easily broken down to their original primary particle size.
Finished Product
Step 6. Finished Product
The end result, our carbon black, reaches its final destination. Providing a unique balance of mechanical and dynamic reinforcing characteristics with extremely low PAH, our carbon blacks as a sustainable, one-to-one replacement to many ASTM furnace carbon blacks in tires and technical rubber goods.
OUR PARTNERS
The Netherlands Circular Hotspot“The Netherlands Circular Hotspot’ campaign positions the Netherlands as an international circular hotspot during the time of the Dutch presidency of the EU in 2016. Circle Economy and prince Carlos de Bourbon de Parme (INSID) collaborate with a diverse group of decision makers and visionaries to discuss how The Netherlands can inspire governments and international businesses to take action”
Cradle to Cradle“The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, a non-profit organization, educates and empowers manufacturers of consumer products to become a positive force for society and the environment, helping to bring about a new industrial revolution”.
Circle Economy“A social enterprise, organised as a cooperative, Circle Economy accelerates the transition to circularity through on the ground, action focused, development of practical and scalable solutions.”
De Groene Zaak“Dutch Sustainable Business (DSB) unites over two hundred pioneering companies. We are the Dutch Chapter of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), work closely with Climate-KIC, and are a founding partner of Ecopreneur. All our partners hold to a clear business principle: transforming our current economic order to a sustainable and circular one as fast as possible”.
OPZuid“The Operational Programme South Netherlands 2014-2020 (OPZuid) is a European funding program for the provinces of Zeeland, Limburg and North Brabant. Spearheads are promoting innovation and the transition to a low carbon economy. The program is focused on innovative SMEs and strengthening the cooperation between industry, universities and governments”.
ASTM“ASTM International is a globally recognized leader in the development and delivery of voluntary consensus standards. Today, over 12,000 ASTM standards are used around the world to improve product quality, enhance health and safety, strengthen market access and trade, and build consumer confidence”.
Stichting Doen
Eco-innovation - European Commission“The eco-innovation initiative bridges the gap between research and the market. It helps good ideas for innovative products, services and processes that protect the environment become fully-fledged commercial prospects, ready for use by business and industry. In doing so the initiative not only helps the EU meet its environmental objectives but also boosts economic growth”.CAREERS
Thank you for your interest in Black Bear!
We’re always looking for passionate people to join our team.FAQ’s
General
What does Black Bear do?
Black Bear brings the circular economy to tires. We enable the production of valuable raw materials (carbon black) from end-of-life tires for re-use in tires, technical rubber products, plastics, paint and ink. We provide technology, product development and marketing and sales expertise of our carbon black products. While we are primarily focussed on the production of high quality carbon black, the process also yields an important bi-product – green energy. This is in the form of high calorific gas and oil, which can be converted to heat, electricity or steam and provides an additional income stream within the business model. We partner with tire collectors and offer our high quality products as raw materials to the Industry.
What is Carbon Black?
Carbon black is a form of elemental carbon that is manufactured by the controlled vapour-phase pyrolysis and partial combustion of hydrocarbons. Several processes have been used to produce carbon black, including the oil-furnace, impingement (channel), lampblack, thermal (decomposition of natural gas) and acetylene (decomposition) processes. Carbon blacks are commonly referred to by the process or the source material from which they are made, e.g. furnace black, lamp black, thermal black, acetylene black and channel black. The different grades from the various processes have certain unique characteristics, but it is now possible to produce reasonable approximations of most of these grades using the oil-furnace process, by which more than 95% of the total output of carbon black is produced. In contrast to carbon black, soot is a material of varying and often unknown composition that is an unwanted by-product of the incomplete combustion of all types of material that contain carbon, such as waste oil, coal, paper, rubber, plastic, household waste and also some fuel oils. Soots have a small surface area of available carbon due to their large particle size and low carbon content. They typically contain large quantities of solvent-extractable materials, and their ash content can be 50% or more. The Black Bear process essentially extracts the furnace carbon blacks from end-of-life tires and then upcycles it in such a way that its defining quality features (surface area, structure, surface chemistry and composition) provide comparable in-rubber performance to furnace grades such as N330 but with enhanced dynamic performance characteristics such as lower tan delta, lower hysteresis and reduced Payne effect. These are important characteristics, for example in tires, where low rolling resistance and fuel economy are important. It also provides good performance as a pigment with high tinting strength and a low PAH content as an additional benefit.
How do you get resources to make Carbon Black?
The Black Bear process uses end-of-life tires to produce carbon black. Each year over one billion tires are removed from vehicles, constituting around 13.5 million tons of solid waste. As tires contain around 25% carbon black. This means that this waste-stream contains approximately 3.4 million tons of carbon black. Through the eyes of BlackBear, a mountain of tires is like a mountain of gold!Therefore we took up the challenge of investigating how to extract the carbon black in a way that is both profitable and friendly to our environment – and perhaps most importantly from a commercial perspective in a way that restores the carbon black to a quality level at least as good as the original product.So Black Bear partners with established tire collectors who can use the Black Bear technology to turn this vast waste stream into a valuable raw material. Before the tires enter the Black Bear process, the steel will be removed and recycled, and the rubber will be converted into granulate.
What is different in your process of making Carbon Black
Traditional furnace or ‘virgin’ carbon black is produced from fossil fuels, by partially burning crude oil under controlled conditions. Depending on the grade it takes between 1.8 and 2.5 litres of fossil fuels to produce 1 kg of carbon black. The standard way of producing carbon black is very polluting. Furnace carbon black manufacturers emit around 38 million tons of CO₂ per year. The ±7.2 million tons of carbon black consumed by the tire industry every year creates an additional environmental issue because after use these tires are mostly burned or landfilled, polluting the environment and wasting the carbon black. In contrast, the Black Bear process uses end-of-life tires as feedstock to produces consistent, high quality carbon blacks. This circular economy approach not only massively reduces CO₂ emissions but also helps solve an important waste management problem. Interestingly, the Black Bear process produces more energy than it consumes, thereby having a beneficial effect on the environment.
Carbon Black (product)
Can your Carbon Black achieve the same quality standards as regular Carbon Black
Yes, with Black Bear’s technology it has become possible to recover high quality carbon blacks that are equal (and in some cases better) than virgin carbon blacks in terms of technical performance. Please see our product pages under ‘Carbon Black users’ for more details or contact us directly!
Does your Carbon Black have a lower Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) content?
Yes, our process effectively ‘cleans’ furnace carbon blacks to a PAH content of <5ppm. This means our products are extremely clean and very suitable for food- and human contact applications. We are proud to produce the world’s first ‘green and clean’ carbon blacks!
How can I proceed if I am interested in testing your Carbon Black?
You can contact us directly via sales@blackbearcarbon.com. Our team is happy to assist you further.
Can you guarantee a regular supply?
Yes, Black Bear’s first production line produces a stable annual output of 5000 ton/year, allowing us to continuously serve customers across market segments. Considering over 1.5B tires come to the end of their life every year, and we currently process ‘only’ 1-2M of them there is no shortage of supply in the near future! Also, Black Bear is in well progressed conversations with potential partners across the world to add additional production capacity.
What are the benefits of purchasing greener Carbon Black?
Using a more sustainable, ‘greener’ carbon black highly improves the environmental footprint of your products, as well as lowering the PAH content – making it better suitable for food- and human contact applications. Currently, carbon blacks are created by burning oil and/or gas which obviously is a highly polluting process that puts great pressure on the environment and our natural resources. Typically, replacing virgin carbon black with green carbon black from Black Bear saves 5-7 ton CO2 for each ton of substituted material.
Also, with Black Bear’s technology, it has become possible to recover high quality carbon blacks that are equal (and in some cases better) than virgin carbon blacks in terms of technical performance.
Technology Roll Out
Are you planning on rolling out to every country of the world?
Yes, waste tires and the associated environmental problems are in every country of the world. We are very excited to resolve this problem with our Circular Economy approach. We prefer to work with local partners and governments in order to maximize our positive environmental impact.
I am not a tire recycler, can I become a Black Bear partner?
Absolutely. We are looking for partners that can provide us with feedstock (end-of-life) tires, locations, permits and financing. In many cases we also partner with local governments. The best way to get in touch with us is to go to our form and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
How much time does it takes to install a manufacturing plant?
On average the construction of a Black Bear line takes around 6 months assuming a timely access to permits and long lead items from vendors. The design concept is modular and has a nameplate output capacity of around 5 kton of carbon black a year. Black Bear and its contracted engineers will arrange all of the required engineering aspects with detailed consideration into all site-specific conditions and requirements. We will work closely with the tire collector/investor(s) and provide all information required to the authorities, for example, for permitting, to expedite the process.
